Happy Birthday Grandma Cornwell

Grandma Cornwell's birthday fell on Easter this year. Marie is the one who first taught me how to cover a cake with fondant and she has volunteered countless hours over the years to make beautiful cakes for people (including all of her children's wedding cakes). So, I though it only right that someone should make a pretty cake for her. Since she loves gardening and the color purple I went with a pot of purple pansies (try saying that ten times fast!) It turned out pretty good; a lovely cake for a lovely lady. Happy Birthday Marie!!

Easter

I don't know if all kids are like this, but Oliver absolutely lives for the holidays. We measure time at our house by the proximity of the next holiday. For example: something would never just take place in the fall, it would occur before or after Halloween or Thanksgiving. Easter is no exception and Oliver has been looking forward to it for weeks now. On Monday we had an FHE lesson that involved finding some easter eggs and ever since Oliver has been hiding those same eggs, leaving the room and then immediately returning to find them. As a result he was well practiced up for all of the Easter egg hunts this weekend. No wonder he ended up with so much candy. Ruby was pretty quick to catch on as well. When we went to Grandma Cornwell's today Ruby saw all the eggs in the yard as we walked into the house and had an absolute fit until it was time to go out and look for them.

This year I thought I would save us from a bit of toothache by coloring eggs with the kids and only hiding those. They had a great time coloring them, but as soon as we were done they both promptly cracked them open and took a bite of every one. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!

Goblin Valley

We went on our first camping trip of the season last weekend to Goblin Valley. The kids absolutely loved it. Goblin Valley is the perfect camping destination for little kids. Oliver was in heaven climbing all over the rock formations, he insisted on climbing to the top of every single one and gave Sam and I several heart attacks in the process. On our hike through Little Wild Horse Canyon we spent most of our energies coaxing him down off the cliffs. Sam thinks he is a born rock climber, we'll see.

While Ruby wasn't quite able (or allowed) to scale the cliffs with Ollie, she was every bit as content sitting and piling dirt on top of herself. She was absolutely filthy for two straight days and loved every minute of it. While she had no problem covering herself in dirt, she still freaked out when she got any kind of food on her fingers - I guess everyone has their limits. The other highlight was the time spent sitting around the campfire and of course the fact that we got to go with our good friends and even my sister and her husband joined us for a while. Camping is always better with good company.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. My camera died a few hours into the trip, I will post more pics when I get some copies from our friends.

Ollie-isms

Stuff that is too cute, too funny or just too Oliver-ish to forget!

1. When Ollie sneezes instead of saying "I sneezed" he always says "I blessed." Obviously this stems from us always saying "bless you".

3. Ollie calls every piece of paper is a "recipe" no matter what it might contain. He also gets the concept of a recipe because he told me the other day that he knew the recipe for skiing: skis, boots, poles and goggles. I guess we need to get out of the kitchen a bit more.

3. I read the picture-scripture book with Ollie and Ruby every morning and it usually creates a lot of discussion as someone seems to be getting killed every other page or so. But there are other things that Oliver picks up on as well, such as when he stripped down to his underwear and ran around the house yelling that he was a Lamanite!

4. Sam recently called Oliver a "cheese-ball", which led Oliver to explain that he was not a cheese-ball because he was not round, he was tall and "sticky" so he was a cheese stick. Duh dad.

5. The other day we were at the park and Oliver asked if he could run down the big hill. After I said yes he exclaimed, "Oh thank you, I have been dreaming about this for a long time!"

6. Several times a day Oliver will look at Ruby and exclaim, "Oh you're soooooo cute. Look at Ruby mom, she is just so cute!"

7. Oliver is a sleep-laugher. Every night Sam and I hear him laughing in his sleep and it is not just a little chuckle but a deep guttural laugh that lasts quite a while. It is hilarious, I wish I always had such happy dreams.

8. And my personal favorite (because I am sure it is only too true) is when it puts his hands on his hips and informs me that "Mom, you are ruining your kids!"

Rock Tired

I recently adopted some strawberry starts from my mom's garden. Ollie was helping me plant them in our backyard while Ruby entertained herself on the grass. At some point however she had enough so she spread her blanket out on this rock and fell asleep. This is what I found when I turned around, she was seriously out cold.

Dress-up Time

Sam went on a business trip to New York in March, he brought me back this shirt but bought a men's small rather than a women's. The big size didn't deter Ruby one bit though. This girl loves to try on clothes, hats, boots and jewelry. She is always bringing me things to put on her, usually she gets things from her brothers drawer and ends up walking around the house with layers and layers of clothing on. I was shocked when I took her clothes shopping the other day to watch how she would pull things off the rack and show them to me and then carefully put them back. She was also adamant about buying the pink shirt rather than the blue one that I had picked out. It was such a different experience from shopping with Oliver who prefers to play hide and seek in the racks of clothes, runs away away from me a top speeds and pulls down as many things as he can just for the pure joy of making a mess.

Ruby is our little princess and she is 100% girl.

Chubby Little Snowman

It has been one of those springs that teases us with good weather only to turn and dump a whole bunch more snow on our front yard. Depressing. Each spring snowfall seems to send me wallowing in self-pity and wishing that I could just put sandals on my kids rather than trying to find them matching socks everyday. My kids on the other hand think that it is the greatest thing in the world. They love sledding, making footprints and just eating the snow. A couple of weeks ago we were at my Grandma's after one of these infamous returns of winter and rather than indulge in all of the scrumptious food my Grandma put out Oliver took his plate outside and filled it up with snow, he brought it back in and that is what he ate for dinner. Yum?

There was one weekend I decided to embrace the snow rather than wish it away, so Ollie and I hurried out and made a snowman before it melted. Oliver had just memorized a poem at school about a chubby little snowman and a bunny that ate it's nose. More than the sledding and snowman building Oliver enjoyed eating the carrot nose right off the snowman's face, we went through several carrots that day.

Little Guy Passing

So, I have been meaning to blog about this for months now, but I was waiting for someone in my family to send me some pictures of the event since I forgot my camera. Seeing as no one has done that yet (hint, hint) I am going to go ahead and blog about it.

Over the Christmas holidays (see, I told you it was a long time ago) my parents took us all skiing to Solitude. Of course, it wouldn't be a "family" event without Ollie and Ruby, so they both got to experience their first ski trip as well. We lucked out to have my brother (a lift operator at Solitude) and his super amazing wife Caci (a ski instructor) to help out. Caci taught Oliver the basics when it comes to flying down the mountain and D snowboarded the entire day with Ruby on his back in a child carrier.

Ruby was a champ, she loves her uncle D and was totally content to be next to him all day. She slept down most of the runs (even the black diamonds!) and giggled at D on the ride up the lifts. She also got her picture taken a lot by people who couldn't believe a mother would strap her baby to the back of a crazy snowboarder!

Ollie was smitten with skiing from the start. Try as we might, we couldn't convince him to turn, he preferred just to fly straight down the mountain. He did learn how to stop and slow down so he didn't ever crash, but he made a beeline for the bottom every time. He would pass everyone on the bunny hill all the while calling out "little guy passing, look out little guy passing." He loved the little skiis we rented for them and still tells me on a regular basis that he doesn't want to grow up because his skis won't fit him if he does. He pretty much asks at every meal what foods will make him big so he can be sure to avoid outgrowing his skis. He has been skiing again with Sam and still loved it every bit as much.
We did get this one picture of Ruby passed out in the baby backpack.